The Cut-Out Bin #7

by PopMatters Staff

Stan Ridgway's neo-noir Western, the heightened contradictions of 10cc, and Claudine Longet, the best of the broken-English chanteuses.

The Cut-Out Bin #7[28 July 2006]

Typically there’s not much of a story worth sharing behind the music we listen to: “I heard it on the radio and downloaded it.” “My friend played this and I liked it.” “This song reminds me of my ex-girlfriend.” But occasionally we come across old records we feel the need to proselytize about, because for whatever reason—poor promotion, ill timing, limited distribution or sheer bad luck—they seem to have missed or lost the audience they deserve and have ended up in the cut-out bin of culture, stashed away in a forgotten cardboard box, collecting dust under some cluttered counter or used-CD rack. When we discover one of these orphans we treasure it all the more for the improbability of ever having stumbled upon it, and more important, for the satisfying underdog story it allows us to tell. We hope we can convince you to listen to a few.

 Rob Horning

Check out the previous installments of the Cut-Out Bin:

#6: Conor Oberst’s philosophical investigations, how Too Much Joy was cursed with comedy, and a humble offering from Styx’s Dennis DeYoung. [go to feature]

#5: George Michael demands the impossible with Listen Without Prejudice, John Phillips’s mid-‘70s muse, and sweet suffocation from the Carpenters. [go to feature]

#4: Raunchy Minnesota country punk from Tulip Sweet, the Psychedelic Furs late-career resurrection, and why Dexy’s Midnight Runners should not be seen as one-hit wonders. [go to feature]

#3: Fin-de-siècle paranoia from Archers of Loaf, Loverboy’s mall-friendly poodle rock and Roger Waters’s vision of how Live Aid may have prevented nuclear annihilation. [go to feature]

#2: Holly Beth Vincent, bluesy belter Genya Ravan, and the sublime idiocy of The Lost Boys soundtrack. [go to feature]

10cc, How Dare You! (Mercury, 1976)by Dennis Cook Lurking just below the goofy comedy, the mishmash of genres and the studio gimmickry of this last album by the band’s original lineup is a pervasive, inconsolable sense of disconnection.